- Label: 'Happy Happy Birthday To Me /Everything Sucks'
- Genre: 'Indie'
- Release Date: '18.3.22.'- Catalogue No: 'HHBTM216'
Our Rating:
Good Grief are a trio from Liverpool and this album comes with a cool silk screen printed cover made in the style of a bootleg and with a cool inserted lyric sheet. The band are Liverpool Scenester and writer Will Fitzpatrick with Paul Abbott and Matiss Dale, with guest vocalist Sarah Maher arriving in time for the final song on the album. I'd also like to emphasize as the bands UK label is based in Lant St that this record does not sound like they have all downed pints of Lant before recording it thankfully.
The a-side opens with Metal Phase which is something everyone should go through at some point; This sounds like they had a late 90's Metal Phase with some slight EMO leanings and a good sense of urgency with vocals that are a bit Dinosaur Jnr.
How Can I Help Falling In Love has the pace of a sort of hit and run love affair, that goes wrong when you end up falling in love with the one night stand, the guitars go off like you're having multiple orgasms and wondering how the hell that happened, then you realize oh no your actually falling in love.
High To Low has a feedbacking intro like it wants to be an anorak classic and vocals that have a bit of The Wedding Present about them, the guitars fizz as the drums nail everything in sight down.
Statement Brickwork could easily describe some of the houses round where I live, let alone the bands hometown of Liverpool, although this sounds more New Brighton than Liverpool, but still this has the indie disco sound about perfect as you should be able to jump around to this tune really well, as they sing about the typical music business practice of building things up one minute and knocking them down the next.
The Pony Remark has what sounds like it could be a Matthew Sweet style guitar line as the action unfolds and we wonder exactly what The Pony Remark is and if it's a slang exchange, as that guitar line keeps coming back to make us smile.
Dimension Jump sadly doesn't have the Star Trek transporter sound but is a bit slower and doomier, yet almost like a slacker ballad that has is it a Glockenspiel solo in the middle.
The B-side opens with New Town that's a good speedy look at the identikit New Town blandness, while of course not being bland in any way at all, as this just makes you want to escape the New Town tedium and make it to the big bad city before the guitars expire.
Line By Line will have you chopping them out and hoovering them up, like your back in the early 90's, as they go and edit the action Line By Line and emphasize exactly what the message is, with loud guitars and well thought out drums and percussion.
The Oldest Things On Earth feels like a real rush of guitars and the poetry in the lyrics pressing home the message they want to get through to you, to listen and let them into your life, you won't regret it especially as the backing vocals sound as cool as this.
Hatches sounds like it could be a reference to The Liver Birds pad and similar late 60's and early 70's housing, that often had a hatch between the kitchen and dining room, as easily as it is about being stuck in lockdown having battened down all the hatches, as the guitars try to break through the walls by the power of feedback and distortion alone, as they sail into the Lusitanian unknown and the wall of noise of the ship breaking up.
The album closes with Kissing Through Curtains an acoustic love song as Will harmonizes with Sarah Maher as we all gaze through the curtains twitching to get a better view of the all the kissing going on.
Find out more at https://www.hhbtm.com/product/good-grief-shake-your-faith/ https://goodgriefliverpool.bandcamp.com/album/shake-your-faith https://www.facebook.com/goodgriefliverpool
